The Shepard and the Soldier
by N7 Jam
Summary: Shepard appears in London following the activation of the Crucible, a hunk of burned armor and flesh. But it isn't her London. Turns out the Convergence tears through the realities of parallel worlds just as easily as it does those of the Nine Realms. Mistaken as a casualty of the Dark Elf invasion, Shepard is taken to a hospital where she awakens, confused and alarmed.
1. Introduction

Post-Winter Soldier and -Thor the Dark World. Post ME 3. Infiltrator, Colonist, War Hero, Paragon Shepard (with Renegade tendencies). Not canon compliant.

Disclaimer: Neither Avengers nor Mass Effect is mine.

"" – talking

'' – inner thoughts

* * *

She'd been stuck on this pre-spaceflight knock-off of Earth for almost a year when she first met him.

Shepard had been reading up on historical discrepancies between her home and this world for the umpteenth time at the library when the man walked in. Despite his casual if haggard appearance Shepard immediately pegged him as dangerous. She could spot at least three well-concealed weapons through his jacket and observed as he catalogued every exit around her corner of the library before his eyes snapped to her.

A sudden thrill of warning chased down her spine as he evaluated her in a matter of seconds, briefly lingering on the outline of the sheathed knife under her sleeve and the burn scar peaking out from the collar of her shirt and hugging the underside of her jaw. This man actually felt like a threat. She'd barely felt anything more pressing than mild concern for her safety since arriving in this Reaperless world. 'What the hell was a guy like this doing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere?' Shepard wondered in concern.

She tensed almost imperceptibly when he began to cautiously approach her table. He stopped across from her and stood awkwardly with his shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets. A worriedly blank face stared down at her from underneath the brim of a generic baseball cap. If it weren't for the obvious lack of Reaper tech and the way his icy eyes were practically boring into her soul, she could have easily mistaken him for a mindless husk. Shepard was understandably concerned and wary.

"Can I borrow that?" he interrupted her train of thought while pointing at one of the history books lounging by her elbow on the table. His voice was raspy, as if disused to speaking.

Nonplussed, Shepard nudged the book in question toward the unkempt stranger and made a noise of affirmation. "It _is_ a library," she drawled somewhat bemusedly, "borrowing is kind of their thing."

"Right." He sheepishly dropped her gaze as he grabbed the book with his right hand, leaving the left in his pocket.

He proceeded to settle in at the next table over from her before cracking open the book and mechanically working his way through the pages. Shepard discreetly kept an eye on him over the course of several hours as she flipped between multiple historical texts and made note of any obvious divergences between her world and this one. It was still mind-boggling to see so many real paper books in one place. Almost everything she was reading may have been available digitally, but she'd always had a weakness for good ole' fashioned printed books and wasn't one to waste an opportunity like this. Having ready access to physical texts was one of the few upsides to this backwards world that she enjoyed wholeheartedly, paper-cuts and all.

As far as she'd been able to discern, all serious deviations in this timeline stemmed from the existence of people with extraordinary abilities, both genetic and scientifically engineered. And wasn't that an uncomfortable pill to swallow, that people with the goals of Cerberus were legally encouraged and supported in their forays into human experimentation. She shuddered to think of what any of the various alphabet soup organizations floating around would do in order to procure a 'successful' specimen such as herself.

On her bad days, Shepard questioned whether she was even human anymore with her body being more cybernetics and spare parts than flesh. She idly wondered if any of the artificially enhanced individuals running around right now possessed similar doubts.

The soft thud of a book closing snapped Shepard from her morbid mental wanderings. It appeared as though her armed and dangerous history buddy was done reading. With palpable reluctance, he approached her table once more and gingerly set the book next to one of her currently unused stacks.

"Thanks." He mumbled through teeth clenched so tightly she swore she could hear his molars grinding together. Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and prowled towards the library exit.

Well. That certainly ranked among one of the most awkward social encounters she'd had since her arrival (or ever, honestly). They'd each spoken less than ten words to each other too. Must be a new record. "Well done Shep," she snarked to herself under her breath as she dove back into research.

* * *

The next several days each saw Shepard back in the furthest corner of the library drowning in a sea of conflicting sources and hagiographical accounts that could scarcely be counted as history for how obviously biased they were. It was fascinating, frustrating and above all, distracting. In other words, exactly what she needed.

Equally, if not more distracting was the fact that her socially incompetent and still armed stranger had come back to the library every day since he'd first shown up. And every day he was once again forced to come over to Shepard and uncomfortably request to borrow one of her books. She almost felt bad for hoarding all of the available history texts from the dinky little library. On the fifth day that he showed up with no obvious intention of deviating from his new pattern, Shepard put her foot down.

"Look," the Commander said in her most reasonable tone as McStranger Danger stopped in front of her table again, "we're both clearly looking into the same information here. Why don't you just join me at my table so you don't have to come back later to borrow something different." She kicked out a chair to the side of the table in unsubtle invitation while staring him down.

The poor guy looked like a murderous deer in the headlights, all frozen muscles and wide eyes. 'Honestly,' she thought with a huff, 'he was even worse than Garrus had been when she first met him and the guy didn't even have the excuse of knowing he was talking to an alien.' The thought of her best friend sent a sharp pang through her partially mechanical heart, but she didn't let it show on her face.

Moving slowly, as if afraid to startle her with too sudden movements, the man sat down at the right side of the table. He remained poised as if ready to jump up and run at the slightest provocation. 'Spirits, was she that intimidating? Was she subconsciously channeling her inner krogan or something? Jesus.'

Recognizing the wary state of her new tablemate, Shepard made sure to telegraph her movements as she gingerly extended her right hand across the table. She'd noticed the unnatural stiffness of her companion's left arm, and refused to make him anymore uncomfortable by forcing him to reveal his prosthetic. So, right-handed shake it was.

"The name's Shepard. Sorry for stealing all of the history stuff, didn't expect to find any other fellow enthusiasts in the area." She explained ruefully.

Finally unfreezing from his impressive impersonation of a statue, the man extended his left hand as carefully as Shepard had and briefly clasped her palm before dropping it like it was aflame. "Call me James." He said after a second of hesitation.

"Well, you've certainly got the muscles to be a James." Shepard mused with a grin, eyeing the impressive outline of the newly dubbed James' arms through his sleeves. Eyes flicking back to James' slightly mystified face, Shepard's grin widened. "I swear I never met a person more in love with their own muscles than Jimmy Vega. I bet he'd be green with envy if he could see the guns you're toting' around there."

Once again, James tensed up. Belatedly, Shepard remembered that at least one of the outlines she'd spotted through James' coat looked distinctly blocky and gun-shaped. Based on that reaction, he probably didn't have a conceal-and-carry permit either. Quickly shifting gears, she bulldozed through the sudden tension by throwing herself into the first topic that came to mind with all the subtlety of a thresher maw.

"So I noticed that the stuff you've been interested in mostly revolves around WWII. Any interest in Captain America and the Red Skull?" Shepard asked hopefully.

It was apparently the worst possible question she could have asked, judging by the now eerily blank expression gracing James' face. 'Smooth, Shepard,' she could practically hear Garrus drawling in her ear.

"Yeah."

Shepard stared blankly for a second, momentarily thrown that the obviously displeased man had deigned to answer her question. "Really?" She replied with more enthusiasm than was probably warranted.

"Yeah, but…" here James hesitated as he stared with frustration at the books in front of him, "it doesn't make any damn sense. All of the accounts say different things and the rest is basically propaganda. Where the hell is the real Captain America and Rogers in all this garbage? Where are the Howling Commandos?!" The last bit was said with almost enough volume to attract the ire of the wandering librarians. James put his head in his hand, a frown of vexation on his face.

Damn. That was certainly more emotional investment that Shepard had anticipated from her line of questioning.

"Well, if you're going for realistic accounts, you're definitely looking in the wrong places."

James snapped his head up so quickly she could hear his vertebrae pop. "What?"

Unknowingly adopting the air of an experienced lecturer, Shepard said, "For one, you're mostly looking in generalized sources which are great for getting the overall picture but terrible for ferreting out specific details. And this library is too small to have anything more than the bare basics." Not to mention that half of the tomes had been painted over with American patriotism so thoroughly they may as well be fiction. She'd spent many a night hacking into old and still classified files from her bed with her omni-tool to fact-check various points of interest she'd found in her research. It was quite enlightening.

James' eyes continued to bore a hole into the side of her skull as she grabbed a loose sheet of paper lying on the table and wrote down the names of several different titles and authors. Ripping off the corner adorned by her chicken-scratch writing, she slid the list over to James saying, "Your second mistake was that you looked at secondhand sources written long after the war was over by authors born post-WWII. If you want solid information on the Captain and the Commandos, you're gonna want to go to the sources themselves." Here she pointed to a couple of different names on her list. "Gabe Jones, Jacques Dernier and Jim Morita all either published memoirs of their time in the Howling Commandos, or had family that organized and published their personal journals after they died. Most of these also include correspondence to and from other members of the Commandos, including Captain America himself. All of these can be found online for free, which is lucky for you because this library doesn't carry any of these books." Pointing to the front of the library, Shepard continued, "They've got some computers up front if you wanna look 'em up."

When she glanced up at James again, she was surprised to see something uncomfortably close to awe on his face as he stared down at the list gripped tightly in his hand. Seemingly possessed by a sudden burst of mania, James jumped up from the table and stuttered, "I, uh, yeah. That. That sounds good. Great. I'm gonna do that. Now." And with that he rushed off, presumably to find the nearest online connection.

Shepard gave a small, crooked smile, eyes crinkling wistfully. He might not have said it, but Shepard could read the unconscious gratitude in James' reaction clear as day.

With James' barely-there grin in mind, Shepard went back to work with a hint of brightness to her thoughts.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I decided to break up this story into chapters. I also went back through and edited the whole thing, so a few things are different and hopefully improved. Enjoy.


	2. Getting to know you

Post-Winter Soldier and -Thor the Dark World. Post ME 3. Infiltrator, Colonist, War Hero, Paragon Shepard (with Renegade tendencies). Not canon compliant.

Disclaimer: Neither Avengers nor Mass Effect is mine.

"" – talking

'' – inner thoughts

* * *

Shepard was surprised when James returned after avoiding the library for the following three days. After showing him a way to obtain his sources without the hassle of human interaction, Shepard hadn't really expected to ever see the man again. James announced his presence with a thud as he unceremoniously dropped a box on the table in front of her.

"Gah!" Shepard jumped up and swore as she jammed her knee on the underside of the table.

"Whoa there, take it easy." A wide-eyed James put his hand up, as if to ward off her clumsiness.

"James? What the hell are you doing here?"

He immediately looked stricken, but Shepard steamrolled over his reaction. "It's nearly closing time! What are you doing wasting your evening down here with these musty old books?" She finished with a warm grin, carefully keeping her weight off of her now throbbing leg.

"I, uh, wanted to thank you," he started uncertainly and motioned to the box on the table, "for your recommendations."

Shepard snagged the box and brought it closer for inspection. She blinked abruptly misty eyes when she saw what it was. "Cookies?" Shepard managed to squeak out around a lump in her throat. The last time she'd had any was long before the Lazarus Project. Hell, probably before she'd joined the Alliance too.

"Yeah, well. I really appreciated what you did for me the other day." James tilted his chin challengingly and firmed his jaw. "And I wanted to make sure you knew that." He nodded his head decisively.

"You – " Shepard snorted mirthfully, an incredulous expression on her face, "message received, kid." Staring down at the box of confections, Shepard came to a decision.

"Have you eaten yet tonight? No, don't answer that, you look like you could use a good meal or three regardless. Come on, let's hit the bar down the street. We can grab some bad food and drinks while you help me eat these cookies."

James could only stare in vague shock as Shepard began to ferry her books back to their appropriate shelves. With the table cleared, she grabbed the box and nudged her hip against a still frozen James.

"Come on, these things aren't gonna eat themselves, you know."

At that, James seemed to come back to himself. He shuffled his feet nervously and peered at her from under the bill of his cap. "Look, it's swell of you to ask, but I really shouldn't – "

"Shouldn't isn't the same as can't, and cookies aren't meant to be eaten alone. Come on James, just think of it like a mission. Consider it an obligation to fill your social quota for the week by humoring the crazy library lady. The food and drinks will just be a bonus." Shepard folded her arms and cocked her hips to stare him down.

He held out longer than most, but eventually allowed his resolve to crumble under her unwavering gaze. "Alright, I'm in," James allowed, gaze suddenly piercing, "but in exchange, I wanna know how you got that scar." He nodded at the junction of her neck and jaw. "It doesn't match what I've seen of standard house-fire victims. Looks like there's a good story behind it."

Shepard blinked in startled bemusement. She couldn't recall anyone ever having asked her something so blatantly personal before. Although the proposition promised to be interesting, Shepard wasn't in the habit of giving away information for free. "Alright," she permitted with a slow nod, "but in return, I expect you to explain your arm." She motioned to the concealed limb in question. "I'm pretty sure it's a prosthetic of some kind seeing how immobile it is, but it makes a weird whirring noise every now and again. Don't think it would do that if it was your standard prosthetic. It's got me curious." If he wanted to go straight for the personal stuff, it was only fair that she retaliated in kind.

James visibly hesitated before he gave a small, exasperated huff. "What the hell. Sure, why not."

* * *

The bartender had given her a slightly incredulous look when she'd gone up to order a glass of milk as part of her order, but the cookies were calling to her and Shepard would not be denied. At least they actually had milk, considering it was a family friendly bar. Once her order was up, she grabbed everything and brought it over to where James was sitting. Unsurprisingly, she found him in an unobtrusive booth in the corner out of the line of sight of any of the windows. There were at least two easy exits within reach and it would be impossible to approach without entering James' field of vision. If she hadn't been busy ordering for them, Shepard probably would have picked the same spot.

Shepard plopped herself and the food down at the booth and watched as James descended upon his portion like a ravenous animal. Giving a mental shrug (Shepard had witnessed more traumatizing eating habits via Grunt and Wrex) she pushed the cookies and milk to the side for later and got started on her own meal.

After they finished, Shepard snagged the cookies and brought them to the center of the table with the milk. She couldn't help the small nostalgic grin on her face.

"You know, I can hardly remember the last time I had one of these." She said wryly, holding up one of the treats for inspection.

"Neither can I." James murmured distractedly, peering down at the box in trepidation.

"What, trying to remember which ones you poisoned?" Shepard interrupted her companion's inspection with a grin.

"No!" James looked up, genuinely horrified. "I wouldn't!"

A deep belly laugh erupted from the Commander. "Take it easy kid, I'm just giving you a hard time." Shepard snorted at the suddenly deadpan expression on James' face. "Spirits, you're a riot." After drowning her cookie in milk, Shepard took the first bite and chewed contentedly.

The taste didn't quite match up with her faded childhood memories of coming in from a hard day out in the fields and pastures to the heavenly smell of chocolate wafting from a pan next to her mother's elbow. The texture was chalky instead of soft and clumpy where it should have been dissolving on her tongue. But it brought to mind her brothers as they play-wrestled with her for the last treat. Her Dad with sugary crumbs in his scruffy beard and a happy gleam in his eyes. Mom's laugh seeping through the thin walls of the old farmhouse.

It was nice.

She came back to herself to find James staring with intense concentration at the half eaten cookie in his hand. He chewed mechanically before swallowing.

"It's not quite – I don't really know how to explain it." James said with a quizzical look on his face.

"Yeah." Shepard said mirthfully. "I know what you mean." She tossed the remains of her cookie into her mouth and reached for a second. "Bet I can eat more than you though."

A light of challenge entered James' eye. "You're on, Shepard." He answered before shoving his remaining cookie in his mouth and reaching for three more at once.

It took maybe two minutes between the two of them to decimate the box of store-bought confections.

Having finished four more cookies than Shepard, James was declared the winner and sat back with a smug but satisfied expression. Despite this, Shepard grumpily noted that only her stomach appeared to protest their impromptu contest.

"So Shepard," James spoke up first for once, still riding the high from his previous victory, "you ready to hold up your end of the deal?" He brought his drink to his mouth for a swig, smirking behind the rim of the bottle.

"I suppose it's only fair." Shepard acquiesced in mock bad humor. She took a steadying pull from her own drink and sighed before continuing in a hopeful tone, "I don't suppose you'd believe it was a completely random accident?"

"Nope."

"Tripped and fell in a puddle of acid?"

"Nice try."

"A fireworks show gone horrifically wrong?"

"Try again, Shepard."

"Fine. Have it your way." Shepard straightened her shoulders, looked James straight in the eyes and said in her most deadpan voice, "I picked a fight with a sentient half-organic, half-synthetic alien the size of a multi-storied building that responded to my hostile action with extreme prejudice by shooting at me with a giant laser-beam of death that exploded upon impact. Some of my armor was fused to my flesh due to the heat and had to be surgically removed. Or so I was told later on."

James wasn't even trying to hide the incredulous expression on his face.

"Your turn." Shepard said sweetly, a challenging glint in her eyes.

"Huh. Alright then." James capitulated with a slowly growing grin. Without warning, he heaved his left arm up onto the table, exposing the dulled silvery plating of his hand. Shepard stared for a moment in fascination before James recaptured her attention.

"So here's what happened," James leaned across the table and murmured to her conspiratorially, a hint of humor in his face, "I was on a mission, yeah? It was the middle of winter. My buddies and I were supposed to intercept these guys on a moving train, they were basically Nazis. Long story short, I ended up on the wrong side of the fight and fell off the train as it was going over a nice, steep cliff. My buddies gave me up for dead and the baddies found me at the bottom with a fucked up frostbitten arm, so they took it off and gave me a shiny new robot one. Just for kicks." He flexed the fingers of his metal hand to show off their dexterity.

At the end of his tale, Shepard and James managed to keep their faces straight for about five seconds before they both burst into gales of laughter.

"Spirits, my ribs!" Shepard wheezed as she clutched her convulsing sides.

"I know they're actually a thing now Shepard, but really? _Aliens_ is the best you can do?" James snorted.

"I admit, yours was more believable. The evil scientists trope is an oldie, but a goodie. Well played." Shepard conceded as her chuckles finally died off.

They both sat in contented silence for a bit before coming to the mutual conclusion that it was time to go.

"We should do this again soon." Shepard said in the doorway of the bar. "I could use a friendly face here." She stared down at the pavement contemplatively.

"I think I'd like that." James agreed wonderingly.


	3. Oh shit

Post-Winter Soldier and -Thor the Dark World. Post ME 3. Infiltrator, Colonist, War Hero, Paragon Shepard (with Renegade tendencies). Not canon compliant.

Disclaimer: Neither Avengers nor Mass Effect is mine.

"" – talking

'' – inner thoughts

* * *

James and Shepard became regular patrons at the family bar near the library and several others around the town as their meetings increased in frequency. They'd eventually exchanged numbers to get ahold of one another, "Just in case," James had said. Luckily, Shepard was able to adjust her omni-tool in order to make it compatible with the phones in this dimension.

They mostly spent their evenings together drinking and seeing who could bullshit better stories. Shepard used the opportunity to share her tales of the Normandy and her crew. She knew James didn't actually believe her, it was just a 'game' after all, but it didn't lessen her appreciation of being able to talk about her ragtag family. James was especially fond of her recollections of Garrus' exploits. She hadn't had much reason to bring them up since she'd come to this world. Shepard missed him and her family terribly when she wasn't overwhelmed by fear that the Reapers might have killed them. Hell, she didn't even know if the Crucible had worked before she'd landed on this alternate Earth. She'd likely never know. It wasn't a thought she liked to linger on.

On the bright side, it appeared as though James was starting to open up more as their interactions continued. He didn't get lost in his head so much anymore, and he was able to respond to inquiries with less hesitancy than before. And his stories were beginning to increase in detail and elaboration. Sure, some of them bore more than a passing similarity to what she'd read in the accounts of the Howling Commandos, but James really added life and character to them. If she hadn't heard the stories in the context of their game, she might have been inclined to take them as fact, they were that good. In particular, she loved James' characterization of Steve. She could really relate to a scrappy young punk who didn't know when to lay down and give up.

On a couple of memorable occasions, James dragged her to a shooting range the next town over where Shepard was delighted to learn that her new pal was a fellow sniper. The first time they went shooting they spent more time talking shop about what weapons and ammunition they preferred than they did any actual shooting. Of course, the range wasn't equipped for sniper rifles forcing them to take turns with James' handgun instead, but they each agreed on the need to find an appropriate range to test their skills against one another someday. Every following time they went to the range, Shepard made sure to bring her own omni-tool generated weapons for James to drool over in envy. He also gave them suspicious looks for the obviously non-standard weapon design, but kept his silence and responded by bringing a few of his own strange and probably illegal firearms to show off.

All in all, it was one of the least eventful relationships Shepard had ever had the pleasure of cultivating in her life. It would be a lie if she said she wasn't waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The relative peace and quiet Shepard had come to associate with her life in this pseudo-Earth ended abruptly about three months into her friendship with James.

It started with a call in the morning before she'd had the chance to get up and make her way to the library. Even all this time later, she still hadn't shaken the habit of snapping wide-awake at the smallest of noises and immediately activated her omni-tool to answer the call when the notification tone went off.

"Whassit – " Shepard slurred, mouth still sleep addled.

"You need to leave."

Shepard worked her jaw as she stared in irritated concern at the glowing projection on her arm. It wasn't like James to be so melodramatic in the morning. Or ever. "Excuse me?"

"There's a group of people after me," James blurted out in a rush, "you've probably heard on the news that Hydra is back yeah? Well, they've been after me for a while now and it looks like they've found me. Shit, I knew I stayed here too long!"

Alarm burned through Shepard like a bullet as she jumped out of her bed and ran to grab the protective N7 armor she'd repaired and replicated months ago. She might have become accustomed to relative inactivity recently, but Shepard recognized the urgency a hairsbreadth away from panic in James' voice. Regardless of the actual truth in his words, he believed _someone_ was after him. And if it really was Hydra, Shepard wasn't taking any chances.

"You think they saw me with you?" She inquired in her best no-nonsense tone as she threw on her armor over her rocket ship-print pajama pants. The lack of under armor mesh meant her pj's stuck out from behind the various buckles and snaps making her look like a child playing dress-up. "They'll come after me to get to you?"

A heavy sigh echoed over the line. "Yes." James ground out in distress. "I know you're probably scared and angry at me right now Shepard, but I need you to follow my instructions exactly, or these guys will kill you. Or worse."

"James – " Shepard tried to start reassuringly as she pulled her recon hood over her frizzy bedhead and began to reach for her guns.

"No time to argue, just listen to me. You're gonna need to grab whatever weapons and cash you have on hand. Easy to carry nonperishable food and water bottles too if you've got them. And your motorcycle keys. Keep your weapons within easy reach and toss everything else in a sturdy bag."

"Look – " Shepard tried to interject calmly, but James desperately bulldozed over her voice as if she hadn't even spoken.

"Climb out the window onto your fire escape and head for the ground. Pick up your motorcycle and walk it down the alley for a block before you start it so they don't hear you. Drive until you hit the next city over and stick to the crowds. When you think you're clear, call this number (he rapidly rattled off a set of digits) and tell whoever answers that Bucky gave you the number and they need to pick you up. Don't worry, he's a friend, he'll help – "

The sound of glass shattering and tinkling onto the floor from deeper in Shepard's apartment interrupted him.

"I'll have get back to you on that." Shepard said calmly as she switched off the call on her omni-tool.

"Shepard!" James shouted before she hung up.

Shepard checked over her scorpion pistol once more to make sure it had been re-modified for heat sinks. A bloodthirsty grin stretched the fabric of her hood as she stared in the direction where heavy booted footsteps could be heard rapidly making their way through the apartment. With a flick of her wrist, she activated her tactical cloak and went hunting.

* * *

As the last intruder crumpled to the floor with a single well-placed headshot, Shepard straightened from her combat crouch and opened her omni-tool to put in a call to James. While the line began ringing, Shepard starting stripping anything useful from the new corpses in her living room and stashing it in her emergency get-outta-dodge bag with the rest of her belongings, idly noting that the dead men and women did indeed have Hydra patches on their uniforms as James had claimed they would.

But why would they be after James?

Putting that thought aside for the moment, Shepard finished looting the corpses and went outside to grab her motorcycle. James hadn't answered her call. A pit of worry formed in her gut. She'd gone by James' place once or twice on their way back from various excursions so she gunned it down to his apartment as fast as she dared. Not many people were out yet to see Shepard in her suspicious blood-flecked armor with guns in plain view, but she kept to the back streets as much as possible anyway to avoid detection. She arrived after fifteen minutes to the sight of James' apartment in flames and the fire department on his front doorstep with curious gawkers dotting the sidewalk a safe distance back.

Shepard snarled every curse she knew, alien and human, as she stowed away her bike and proceeded to the nearest building with a fire escape so she could climb up onto the roof and keep an eye on James' place while she input the necessary information into her omni-tool to make another call.

She dearly hoped James' friend would be as helpful as he claimed they would be.


	4. Reinforcements

Post-Winter Soldier and -Thor the Dark World. Post ME 3. Infiltrator, Colonist, War Hero, Paragon Shepard (with Renegade tendencies). Not canon compliant.

Disclaimer: Neither Avengers nor Mass Effect is mine.

"" – talking

'' – inner thoughts

* * *

Steve reached into his pocket as he heard his phone go off. Judging by the alert tone it was a call, not a text. The sound immediately put him on edge, as he'd yet to receive a phone call that yielded anything except trouble. His apprehension only worsened when he saw that it was an unknown number.

"You getting any ID off of this, JARVIS?" Steve asked warily.

"No, sir." JARVIS replied in a tone of puzzlement.

Several heads snapped up in astonishment at the AI's sheepish admission.

"Well, that can't be good." Steve murmured in trepidation as he accepted the unknown call. "Hello?"

"I don't know who you are, but I was given this number by a friend in the case of an emergency. Does the name Bucky mean anything to you?"

Steve felt himself tense in shock before his heart started beating double-time with a sudden surge of adrenaline. The voice on the line continued to speak as Steve signaled to JARVIS to start recording and backtracking the caller. Tony, nosey bastard that he was, remotely activated his speakerphone so that the rest of the Avengers present could listen in as well.

"He's been going by James recently, but I don't know if he has any other aliases you might recognize. Can you help me?"

Now privy to the conversation, both Sam and Natasha perked up at hearing the name of their quarry from the anonymous caller. Steve shot them both a significant look before answering the query.

"Yeah, Bucky's a friend of mine. Or James, whatever he's calling himself now. What kind of trouble has he gotten into that you're the one calling instead of him?"

"I'm pretty sure he just got captured by Hydra."

Steve felt the blood drain from his face and the armrest in his grip creaked alarmingly as his hand clenched convulsively.

"What happened?" He barked into the phone, all pretense of calm stripped from his voice. "And when?"

There was a pause from the other end of the line before the stranger spoke up again in a markedly cooler tone, "James called me about half an hour ago, said he'd stayed in one place too long, that Hydra had tracked him here. He was certain we'd been seen together and that Hydra would make an attempt to capture me to force his compliance. He gave me instructions to escape and this number to call for help, but I was forced to hang up after I heard someone breaking into my apartment through the window. Long story short, the agents in my home came down with a terminal case of being very dead and by the time I made it to James' place, it was on fire and surrounded by people. And he has not answered his phone since he called me this morning."

The end of the stranger's report was punctuated by a whine of equal parts outrage and frustration from Tony. "Look, I get it's very important that your buddy is probably in deep shit right now, but can we talk about the fact that _JARVIS and I cannot track the location of your phone_? What the hell kind of tech are you using?"

Another pregnant silence permeated the room as the stranger presumably absorbed the fact that there was more than one person on the line. Pointedly ignoring Tony's interruption, they said, "You still haven't answered whether or not you're willing to help me find James. If your next sentence isn't a clear statement of your intentions, I will hang up and you will get nothing."

"Yes! Yes, we'll help get him back! Don't hang up, I should've mentioned more than one person was listening in. We work as a team, more than likely a few of us will be working together to help you." Steve glared at Tony from across the room for antagonizing the best lead he'd gotten for finding Bucky since he'd learned his friend was still alive.

Tony pouted, clearly unrepentant.

"Good. I'm sending you the coordinates of the crime scenes now along with photos of the agents that invaded my apartment. Let me know if you can identify them or glean any pertinent information from their identities. Facial recognition will probably be tough for most of them, sorry about that, but it's all I have. I'm gonna check the security and traffic cameras around the apartment, see if any of these Hydra _bosh'tets_ got sloppy. Send me your ETA, and call if you find anything."

"Wait!" Natasha called out before the caller could hang up. "What's your name? How will we identify you when we meet?"

"Call me Shepard," a note of longsuffering entered the stranger's voice as they continued, "and I'll be the woman carrying guns, in her pajamas."

* * *

JARVIS estimated that it would be approximately three hours before the quinjet could reach the coordinates given by Shepard. In the meantime Steve, Natasha, Sam and Rhodes looked on in poorly concealed interest while Tony and his AI took the opportunity to comb through the recent security footage surrounding reports of a recent fire in the area.

"I believe we've located your mystery caller, Captain Rogers." JARVIS announced to his rapt audience.

"Bringing it up on-screen now." Tony mumbled to himself and flicked his wrist.

The Avengers watched the screen come to life as a blurry figure on a motorcycle just barely graced the peripherals of a series of security clips played one after the other until the final scene where the figure stopped and abandoned their bike as they headed for the nearest alley. Their armor was bulky enough to conceal any feminine features, and the mask completely disguised their face, but the rocket-ship printed pants poking out from between the plates of the armored legs were a relatively damning identifier. Not to mention the intimidatingly large gun prominently displayed on the back of the figure's armor.

"Here are the results for the license plate, sir." JARVIS shunted the security footage to the side and brought up a driver's license beside it. A stoic-faced woman with piercing eyes peered out at them. JARVIS proceeded to read off the information listed. "The motorcycle appears to have been registered to a Jane Shepard, 41 years old, female, 5'5" with graying red hair and green eyes." Various files listed in connection to Shepard popped up sporadically next to the license on screen. "Records show that there is no next of kin or emergency contact listed in her paperwork. Identifying features include severe scarring that covers much of her torso and neck. Housing records have her down as an official resident as of a little more than fourteen months ago. It is highly likely that her personal information is forged. She is currently listed as a missing person wanted for questioning in connection to the deaths of six suspicious individuals found dead in her apartment."

Tony broke the contemplative silence as everyone compared the voice on the phone to the woman on the screen. "Alright, I can't be the only one seeing what I think I'm seeing, right?"

"If you're referring to the first solid lead we've had since this whole Winter Soldier mess started – "

"No no no," Tony cut off Sam impatiently, "I'm talking about the uncanny resemblance this 'Shepard' has to our very own Black Widow." Turning to Natasha, Stark gleefully rubbed his hands together and theorized, "So what is she? An escaped SHIELD clone? Maybe Hydra? Your illegitimate half-sibling spawned from a brief but torrid affair and left on an orphanage doorstep?"

"Do all redheads look the same to you, Stark?" Natasha asked dangerously while examining her perfect nails for a perceived fault. "I wonder what Pepper would think of your uncanny identification skills."

Multiple chuckles echoed around the jet as Tony paled and crossed his arms petulantly while leveling a glare at the Widow.

"To be honest, I'm more curious about how Barnes became friends with this girl, assuming she wasn't making that part up." Sam spoke in Steve's direction bemusedly. "I mean, he didn't strike me as the friendliest guy when he was ripping the wings from my back or pounding your face into the concrete. And the one-man-war he was raging against Hydra up until recently doesn't really scream 'amiable' either. No offense, Steve." Sam shrugged at his friend ruefully.

"This is just a theory mind you, but I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say that Shepard here isn't the friendliest person around, herself." Rhodes deadpanned while idly paging through printouts depicting the Hydra corpses from Shepard's apartment. "Each of these guys was taken out with a single shot to the head, two from close up, the rest from a distance. And I'm not seeing any out-of-place bloodstains that look like they could belong to our girl. She's good. Real good. This is not the work of an untrained and inexperienced fighter." Rhodes looked to Tony with a troubled expression upon his face. Tony's brows scrunched in concern before he cleared the expression from his face and turned thoughtfully to Steve.

"Well Cap, what've you got to say about our mystery girl? You're the only one who hasn't joined in on our little gossip session. Chop, chop, what's the verdict?"

Steve sat hunched over on a seat with his hands clasped in front of the lower half of his face. He briefly glanced up at the team before continuing to stare at the floor broodingly. "So long as she isn't secretly Hydra and genuinely wants to help Bucky, I don't give a damn who she is or what kind of threat she poses." Steve ground out, eyes hard and flinty.

"We'll see about that." Natasha responded ominously while studiously dissecting the images of Shepard on-screen.

* * *

The security footage Shepard had pulled from around James' apartment and hers had revealed very little information that made sense. For her, the goons had pulled right up in front of her place in your stereotypical kidnapper van before they proceeded to split up into two groups that broke in from the window on the fire escape and her door, respectively. Obviously, she knew how that encounter had ended.

James' attackers hadn't shown much more tact than hers as they did much the same. What concerned Shepard was the fact that one of the cameras just barely caught sight of James later walking out of his apartment, unbound, unresisting, and surrounded by his captors who had gone so far as to put their weapons away in apparent unconcern for the armed man in their midst. Two of the eight Hydra agents were missing, but the fire at James' apartment had yet to die down enough for officials to determine whether or not there were any bodies among the wreckage. She assumed he'd killed them, but seeing how cooperative James was being with the intruders was throwing her off. _Why wasn't he fighting them, dammit?!_

She'd managed to track them in their van through traffic cameras for about forty minutes before losing them. Running the license plates through various databases just revealed that someone in Hydra knew how to properly forge information for vehicle registration leaving her high-and-dry with the last location and direction the Hydra agents had been driving with James as her only clue. Frustrated was not a strong enough word for how she felt. Regardless, she passed on her findings to James' people and hopped back on her bike to drive out to the last place she knew the kidnappers had been.

Intellectually, she knew it was smarter to have backup before she went after James wherever he was being transported or held, but every moment of seeming inaction on her part was another moment James had to spend with Hydra. Foggy visions of bloody needles and charred flesh flashed through her head. ' _You were nothin' but meat and tubes_.' Jacob's voice echoed in her skull. She still couldn't suppress a shudder of bone-chilling revulsion at the thought of what Cerberus had done to her while she was at their mercy. Her only consolation came from the fact that she'd been either unconscious or unresponsive for the majority of the operation.

Needless to say, Shepard was in a poor mood by the time she finally reached the location from the traffic cam. She found the van in question sitting pretty in a ditch to the side of the road not too far off from where it had last been sighted. Shepard hastily jumped from her bike after putting down the kickstand and jogged over to examine the doors and windows. There were a couple of dings and scratches on the exterior, but nothing that suggested a struggle. The windows were tinted to obscure the inside, so Shepard used her omni-tool to unlock the vehicle remotely and de-activate the alarm. She was still baffled by how useless basic security here was in the face of her tech.

The inside from the driver's perspective was painfully bland and normal looking. There was a tinted partition separating the front seats from the back, so Shepard made her way around to the rear doors after a cursory inspection of the anterior.

Opening the back doors revealed a scene distressingly similar to what Shepard had found in many of the Cerberus facilities she'd raided over the course of her career.

The walls, doors and windows were reinforced heavily enough to withstand maybe two hits from a YMIR mech. The floor was covered in scuff marks and the occasional drop of blood. Standing in the center like an unholy pedestal was a set of heavy restraints bolted to the floor. She recognized the design, it was meant to force a person to their knees and completely sheathe their hands behind them to prevent any tampering of the restraints. A separate set of cuffs nearby would have been meant to encase the lower legs to keep the victim pinned to the floor.

At the very least she could be certain now that James didn't go with them willingly, she mused grimly.

A closer inspection of the cuffs revealed a small, damaged device lodged underneath the hand restraints. Eagerly, Shepard scanned it with her omni-tool and confirmed that the apparatus was designed for communication. The ear-piece may have been inoperable due to damage, but Shepard was able to adjust her omni-tool to access the same frequency and channel listed on the tiny switches. After making certain that her end was muted, Shepard activated the voice channel.

The line remained stubbornly silent for the first few minutes, so Shepard pocketed the broken device and went back to her bike to settle in and wait. Almost fifteen minutes later, her patience was rewarded. Shepard stared with bated breath as unfamiliar voices stuttered to life over her 'tool.

"Current ETA approximately fifteen minutes. Asset is still in custody and remains compliant."

'A scheduled status report?' Shepard theorized excitedly.

"Has it given any explanation for the obstacle encountered by extraction Team Beta?"

"Negative. It still claims ignorance. Efforts to persuade cooperation have encouraged no further answers."

Shepard had the uncomfortable feeling that Hydra defined 'persuasion' much differently than she did. Assuming this Asset was James, it painted a bleak picture.

"Prepare the heavy restraints for transfer. The chair remains unfinished. The Asset will require constant monitoring until its completion. Re-conditioning can then proceed as scheduled."

"Affirmative." The line went dead.

Shepard stared ahead blankly as a haze of cold rage descended over her vision. Re-conditioning. Those quadless freaks were going to brainwash James. Had done it before, by the sounds of it. 'Were they controlling him now?' She pondered faintly, picturing the stilted quality to James' movement on the security camera as he was escorted from his apartment.

Shepard was only distantly aware as she put in yet another call to James' associates, anger and a sick sense of urgency throbbing through her veins. The line barely had time to ring once before being picked up. She uncaringly spoke over the voice that answered. "Don't talk, just listen." Something in her studiously blank tone must have given away the gravity of the situation because she didn't hear a peep out of the others as she started playing the recording she'd taken of the Hydra agents.

"What does this mean?" Shepard demanded apprehensively over the grim silence echoing from her audience.

"It means we've got a deadline," she heard her own deadly rage reflected unsteadily back at her from James' friend, "and if we don't meet that deadline, there won't be a Bucky or James for us to rescue after we find him." She heard his breath rush out of his mouth in a shudder.

"Nope, not gonna happen." The flippant man from earlier interjected suddenly.

"Tony…" The first man growled out warningly.

"No, see, we've got them now Cap!" Tony babbled insistently. "Thanks to our resident shepherd, JARVIS here can now track down Hydra's newest hidey hole. I've studies the remains of the bases you and your terminator boyfriend have torched. Let me tell ya, it takes some very specific and expensive materials to make one of those glorified brain-scramblers. And it's not exactly easy to hide the purchase and transportation of vibranium."

A calm, English accented voice interrupted the newly identified Tony's fervent ranting. "I believe I have located a probable culprit, sir. Our course will need to be adjusted accordingly to compensate for the new destination." Shepard felt a burst of desperate hope bubble up in her throat at the triumphant exclamation Tony made.

"Not even a minute, J-baby! What would I ever do without you?" Tony crowed in her ear.

"I hope to never find out, sir." The modulated voice intoned fondly.

"Where's James being held?" Shepard demanded insistently.

A telling pause prefixed their next response. "Don't worry ma'am, we'll get him back. You've already done more than your share of the work." Cap attempted to placate her.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Shepard inquired dangerously, the tendons of her jaw working furiously in agitation.

A sigh of equal parts frustration and regret reached her ears. "Look, we appreciate what you've done to help find Bucky. _I_ really appreciate what you've done for him. But Hydra doesn't mess around, and we're about to step right into their territory. And if you really are Bucky's friend, I know he wouldn't want you involved in this mess. It's not your fight, Shepard." Cap finished determinedly.

Something in Shepard snapped.

"Listen up _boy_!" She barked in her best Commander Voice. "I woke up this morning to the sound of my only friend in the world being taken from me. I then killed six men and walked away without a scratch. If I have my way, I'm gonna round out my afternoon by killing a few more idiots and having a _nice, long chat_ with my buddy James about his questionable life choices. Don't you dare think I won't add you to my body count if you try to get in my way, _Cap_. " She eked out with a snarl of contempt. "I called you for _help_ , not to be left high-and-dry right before battle! Now send me the spirits-damned coordinates!"

"Shepard – "

"Steve," the feminine voice from earlier interrupted knowingly, "you saw what she can do without warning. She could be useful."

The line dissolved into indistinct but harsh murmurs before resolving into agitated silence after a few seconds. "Sending the coordinates now, Miss Shepard." J capitulated as a corresponding notification popped up on her omni-tool.

"Excellent," a frazzled Shepard croaked out as she frantically scanned the location on her display, "I'll be in the base by the time you get there. Make some noise when you arrive to get their attention so that I can find James."

"No," Steve interjected, uncompromising, "you'll wait to join up with us in the base before going after Bucky. Scouting is fine if you can remain unnoticed, but Hydra most likely has control of him right now, and if they do, he'll attack you. He's too strong for you to take on alone, he'll kill you without hesitation. I won't let him have your blood on his conscious."

"Agreed." Shepard ground out grudgingly, teeth bared in irritation. She hadn't been this riled up by a simple chat since the last time she'd spoken with Udina and the Council.

"Good. Hit him hard, but aim to incapacitate. His body is more durable than most and he's got an advanced healing factor to boot, so remember that he can take a lot of damage before going down."

"The warning is noted and appreciated. I'll see you there." Shepard closed the line vindictively, mind thrumming with indignation, fury and relief in equal measure. She wondered if this was how Anderson felt after every time he talked to her.

"I've got a fucking headache." Shepard mumbled wearily as she scrunched her brows and rubbed ineffectually at her aching skull.


	5. Cavalry's here

Post-Winter Soldier and -Thor the Dark World. Post ME 3. Infiltrator, Colonist, War Hero, Paragon Shepard (with Renegade tendencies). Not canon compliant.

Disclaimer: Neither Avengers nor Mass Effect is mine.

"" – talking

'' – inner thoughts

* * *

Within the hour, Shepard arrived at the address she'd been sent.

The base didn't look like much when she saw it, but Shepard mused that was probably the point of the whole charade. From the outside, it looked like your average office building with secretaries and workers populating the lobby. Unfortunately for Hydra, Shepard knew better. She walked through the front door with her tactical cloak activated and proceeded to investigate the building until she found the door with the most intimidating and complicated looking locks. From there it was the work of about half a minute before she'd bypassed the various security devices with her 'tool and had her first good look at the _real_ Hydra base.

Most of the place appeared to lead underground with winding corridors branching off in every direction. Every now and again she'd spy a lab through a closing door or glimpse a series of flickering monitors through a diminutive window. Almost every room was filled with a sizable amount of people, with several more patrolling the halls outside.

The odds of pulling off a successful rescue with so many enemies around weren't looking great, but since when had Shepard let that stop her before? She tentatively reassured herself with the observation that the majority of the people she'd seen were likely R&D oriented as opposed to combat-ready.

There was only one room she'd neglected to inspect due to the heavy guard presence positioned outside of the entry. No way they'd ignore a door with that many fancy locks being opened for seemingly no reason. Shepard grudgingly resolved to investigate later. She hadn't found James yet, and guards were only necessary for securing valuables. Considering the resources and manpower Hydra had utilized to capture James, she reckoned the organization considered him to be _quite_ valuable. Asset, they'd called him earlier. If he was being held in that room, she couldn't afford to barge in and confront him alone, not according to Steve, anyway.

After taking the time to forward the approximate number of enemies present and the layout of the areas she'd catalogued to the so-called 'Cap' and company, Shepard retreated to the four-man security hub where a wall of active monitors were displaying nearly every nook and cranny of the Hydra base. She dejectedly noted that there was still no sign of James on any of the screens. Regardless, Shepard methodically went about stealthily and efficiently dispatching each of the four agents present in anticipation of Cap's imminent arrival. He'd given an ETA of just five minutes before his forces breached the facility shortly after she sent her update.

With a final sweep of her omni-tool over the console, Shepard de-activated all alarms present and electronically sealed and locked all doors leading off of the main hallway. Hopefully, it would help to better stagger the amount of combatants the others would be forced to deal with and make the numbers more manageable.

From there, Shepard de-activated her tactical cloak to allow it to recharge and settled down to wait for the cavalry, pistol held at the ready by her side and the anticipation of battle thrumming in her veins.

* * *

Horrified silence descended over the lobby as Iron Man and War Machine casually strolled through the front doors. Tony barely got out two words of his surrender speech before a sharp ping rang off his armor.

The lone agent who'd shot at him looked on in panicked horror as his bullet ricocheted harmlessly off of the red and gold protective casing.

"Ugh, rude!" Tony sing-songed in faux outrage.

Then pandemonium descended as the supposed office workers and secretaries all unfroze and simultaneously began to fumble for their weapons. Within seconds, bullets were flying across the room only to ineffectually bounce off of both armors before embedding themselves in the walls and the occasional unlucky shooter.

A sigh erupted over Iron Man's speakers as his shoulders dipped. "Alright, this is just sad." He said before activating his targeting system and taking down everyone in the room.

War Machine slowly turned his head to stare reproachfully at his partner.

Tony immediately held up a hand to block Rhodey's stare. "Hey, no judgment man, this is a strictly judgment-free zone!" Tony gestured at the bodies littering the floor. "You saw what happened, it was actually pathetic. I was doing them a favor!" Tony insisted emphatically.

"Yeah, yeah," War Machine drawled as he walked over to toe the ribs of one of the tranquilized agents, "was just expecting more of a fight, I guess." He trailed off in disappointment.

"Don't get your hopes up yet Colonel," Natasha warned coolly, a sly smirk gracing her lips as she sauntered in beside the two, "there's sure to be more where that came from if Shepard's report is to be believed."

"Better not keep them waiting." Steve said grimly as he marched inside with deadly purpose towards the door Shepard had indicated led to the lower levels. This was the third time Bucky had fallen into Hydra's hands. Steve was going to make certain there wouldn't be another.

The door was blasted off it's hinges as the Avengers streamed inside. Almost immediately they were besieged by a wave of Hydra agents, though not nearly as many as Shepard had led them to believe.

"Okay, what gives?" Rhodes huffed as he trudged through their poorly prepared opponents. "I thought Barnes' girl said there'd practically be an army down here. This is barely a welcoming committee." He grunted and shifted to take a swing at the man who'd attempted to mow him down from behind.

"They _are_ the welcoming committee." A familiar voice drawled amusedly over their supposedly private line. Several bursts of gunfire interrupted Shepard before she continued, "Everyone else is locked in the rooms to your sides courtesy of yours truly. Some will work out how to get out eventually I'm sure, but you've got a decent grace period before shit hits the fan. Make it count." A high-pitched scream on Shepard's end cut off in an ominous gurgle as she finished.

An amused chuckle slipped from the Widow. "Smart, efficient and competent. You're a woman after my own heart, Shepard." Natasha purred as she snapped a man's neck and used his body to absorb the resulting wave of bullets streaking in her direction.

"Scary lady-assassin flirting aside," Tony interjected with an almost audible shudder of fear, "when we're done here Shep, you and I are gonna have a _talk_ about how you keep hi-jacking my tech."

"I'd pay to be in the room when that happens." Sam chipped in cheerily as he dive-bombed a group of combatants clustered like bowling pins.

"Less talking, more fighting." Steve snapped over the comms. "Iron Man, I want you, War Machine and Falcon to stay here and keep the grunts busy. Widow and I will locate Bucky."

"Sure thing, Captain Killjoy." Stark called out mockingly as he sloppily saluted Steve's retreating back.

Ignoring Tony's snark, Steve continued at a jog further into the base, Nat hot on his heels. "Shepard, can you meet us at the guarded door you mentioned earlier? Do you need an extraction?"

"Sure, just give me a second." Shepard murmured distractedly before a distant boom rumbled in their ears.

"Shepard?!" Steve called out worriedly.

"No worries Cap, just permanently disabling their security center." Shepard reassured in vicious glee. "Last I saw on the monitors, the guards had left their post to investigate the ruckus your people caused. Good job."

"Glad our distraction was up to your standards." Steve drawled in reluctant amusement and indignation as the door in question came in sight. "Shepard, what's your ETA?"

"Now." He brought his shield up and spun around in alarm at the voice that spoke up behind him, but no one was there. Widow looked equally on edge and twitchy at his side as she brandished her knives threateningly.

A unladylike snort echoed from nowhere before Shepard suddenly turned visible before them. "That reaction never gets old." Mirth radiated unapologetically from her masked face.

"I don't appreciate being snuck up on." Widow said expressionlessly, eyes glinting with suppressed violence.

"Noted," Shepard acknowledged, still amused.

Tentatively, Shepard tilted her head up to peer at Steve. He found the opaque red lenses to be much more disconcerting in person, even as he loomed over her surprisingly short figure. "Are you ready to get him back?" She asked, all levity gone from her voice.

Steve nodded solemnly. "Don't hold back." He warned, face pinched with equal parts determination and concern.

Nodding in acknowledgment, Shepard held up her arm to the numerous locks adorning the door as a glowing orange vambrace sprung into existence around it. After almost a minute of manipulating the rotating circles on her hand, Shepard stood back as the door panel blinked green and the entry popped open.

They all shivered as a wave of unnatural cold seeped into their flesh.

* * *

Shepard had believed her previous experience with husks would have prepared her for a brainwashed and unresponsive James. She was incredibly disheartened to realize this was not the case.

While horrifying and soul-scarring in their own right, husks had never really identified as _people_ to Shepard. Their augmentations made them inhuman, unidentifiable, unfamiliar. They were just corpses whose bodies hadn't gotten the memo and kept on going.

Even with all she'd seen, Shepard knew the sight of James' dead and lifeless eyes would haunt her shadowy nightmares for many years to come.

He'd charged them as soon as they'd gone through the door while a group of panicking scientists screamed orders at him from the furthest corner of the large room. The walls were bracketed by floor-to-ceiling tubes that emanated cold and the skeleton of a complicated looking chair loomed menacingly in the shadows towards the back. That was all Shepard had time to observe before she was throwing herself in a combat roll to the side and vanishing under her tactical cloak.

Natasha exchanged a few glancing blows with James before disengaging in favor of confronting the few combatants spread throughout the room taking potshots at all of them. Shepard assisted her from the shadows while Cap took the brunt of James' attacks. She could vaguely hear him trying to reason with the man in between the thud of exchanged hits, to little effect.

Shepard was only forced to intervene in Cap's fight once when he was temporarily downed by the combination of a lucky bullet in the shoulder and a sweeping kick from James. James would have brought Cap's own shield down on his skull if Shepard hadn't managed to tackle her friend in the side and slam him to the ground. He reacted almost quicker than she could follow as he twisted around and slammed the shield into the side of her skull, snapping her neck painfully to the side before he promptly kicked her up and off of him. She stubbornly ignored the feeling of the air being punched out of her lungs upon landing, and quickly brought her arms up defensively to block the edge of the shield as it was brought down on her neck. She felt the shield cut deeply into the flesh of her arm and her sub-dermal cybernetics before his weight was suddenly pulled off of her by Cap. Staggering to her feet, Shepard brought her gun to bear and shot multiple disabling shots at James' legs and arm. The resulting falter in James' stance allowed Widow the chance to leap into the fray and deliver a final, precise knockout blow.

All of them stood, bloody and breathing heavily in the room of downed agents. With a grunt of effort, Steve reached down and hauled James' unconscious body over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. He staggered under the weight for a moment before righting himself.

"Come with us." Steve implored Shepard breathlessly.

Without pause, Shepard started limping towards the door and down the hall in the direction of the rest of the Avengers. "Heh – you're crazy if you think I went to all this trouble just to leave Princess over there with you." She wheezed back over her shoulder while cradling her bloodied arm against her side. "Now let's get a move on. Daylight's wasting, kiddo."

Steve smiled hopefully before trudging after her.


	6. Sorry

Post-Winter Soldier and -Thor the Dark World. Post ME 3. Infiltrator, Colonist, War Hero, Paragon Shepard (with Renegade tendencies). Not canon compliant.

Disclaimer: Neither Avengers nor Mass Effect is mine.

"" – talking

'' – inner thoughts

* * *

By the time they made it back to the quinjet where the rest of the team was waiting, SHIELD was just beginning to arrive on scene. The other Avengers glanced from Shepard to Steve questioningly as she walked aboard behind him, but otherwise kept their comments to themselves. The fight had been draining for everyone, and even Tony found himself disinclined to start up a round of twenty questions. Thus, the flight back to Avengers' Tower went by in relatively peaceful silence, if one was able to ignore the tense glances everyone kept shooting at the inert form of Barnes laid out on the seats.

Their arrival at the Tower was heralded by a veritable deluge of medical professionals as they all stepped forward to examine the wounds on the returning heroes. Shepard and Steve dodged their efforts with the ease of long practice in favor of following the stretcher James had been placed on as he was wheeled further into the building. He was deposited in a sealed, Hulk-proof room with several reinforced viewing windows before the doctors scrambled to clean and stitch the man's wounds. They left as quickly as possible once they were done. Shepard and Steve found themselves alone, sitting on a bench in front of one of the windows where they could easily keep an eye on their unconscious friend.

"You know, when James gave me that number I really wasn't expecting for his friends to be the spirits-damned Avengers."

Steve briefly glanced at the tired smile on Shepard's face before turning his gaze back to Bucky. "Can't say I'm surprised. He never was the best at sharing important details, 'specially when under pressure. Guess some things just don't change." He scrubbed his arm harshly against suddenly burning eyes. "I really can't thank you enough for what you've done for him," he murmured wetly, "and I don't just mean for the rescue. Your actions proved that you really care for him, and I can't tell you how much it means to know he's got more than just me in his corner unconditionally." Steve took a steadying breath as he paused to collect himself. "But you also don't know what he's done, and I need to know you won't hold it against him when you find out his history. It would destroy him to – "

"Steve." Shepard's tremulous tone stopped him in his tracks, and he turned to face her once again. He watched as she finally removed her mask and turned to face him fully. Tears were already wending their way down her freckled cheeks while a smile fitfully flitted about her lips. "I know who he is, Steve. Between Hydra and the Avengers, he wasn't that hard to recognize. The Winter Soldier." She tilted her head in the direction of the window. "But I don't really know the Winter Soldier, Steve. I know a man named James, and he's my only friend in the world. And it probably doesn't say a lot about my morals, but I don't really care what he's done. Besides," her fragile smile contorted and froze into a rictus grin as her eyes turned dull and dead, "how could I, of all people, blame him for the lives he's taken when I've killed so many more by my own choice?"

A similar anguish that spoke of untold horror and war was mirrored in Steve's eyes as he gazed solemnly at Shepard before his jaw set in determination. "Make that two friends in the world." He stuck out his hand suddenly, face set stubbornly.

Shepard's eyes widened in shock as they flickered between the hand held steadily in front of her and the Steve's mulish expression. A wide grin slowly bloomed across her bruised and battered face as she reached up with her good arm to return Steve's gesture with a strong grip.

"Friends." She agreed in uncertain happiness.

* * *

To everyone's relief, James was fully himself when he woke up several hours later. Shepard and Steve had immediately gone in to see him, but James had grown so quiet and tense in her presence that she had retreated back outside to allow him to speak with Steve alone. She'd be lying if she said it didn't hurt when he flinched away from her.

After a tense hour spent waiting, Steve finally exited the room. "He wants to see you now." He told Shepard earnestly as he squeezed her shoulder in support.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up and entered the room. James was sitting on the stretcher against the wall looking absolutely miserable as he leaned his elbows on his knees. He wouldn't even look up at her as she gingerly sat down on the empty end of the stretcher.

"I'm sorry!" He blurted out.

A suffocating silence grew between them before Shepard responded. "Gonne have to be more specific kid, there's a whole lotta things to be sorry for today." Shepard spoke roughly, mouth set in a grim line.

She watched his fists and jaw clench before he forcefully relaxed them. His shoulders slumped in defeat.

"For everything?" He asked uncertainly, a hint of hysteria creeping into his voice. "I got you involved with _Hydra_. They sent a squad to _capture_ _you_ because of _me_. I tried to kill you!" His voice rose unsteadily at the end as he reached over to grab her arm, insistently angling the wound towards the light to better expose his guilt. "You almost died, because I thought it was okay for me to play pretend and be human again. What a laugh, the Winter Soldier being human!" He spat bitterly with a snarl on his face. "I knew they were after me and I didn't mean to stay so long, but you – " He choked on his words and dropped her arm as if it burned before he buried his head in his hands, body shuddering uncontrollably.

Carefully, Shepard scooted closer to James and put her arm around his shoulder, dragging him closer until he was leaning against her side. His muscles were rigid and inflexible under her touch.

Keeping a relaxed grip on his shoulder, Shepard quietly murmured, "I'm sorry." James flinched under her hand.

Continuing, she said, "I'm sorry I couldn't help you sooner. And I'm sorry I let them take you." Gently tapping his bandaged arm with her unoccupied hand she said, "I'm sorry I shot you earlier. And I'm sorry you think it's okay for others to treat you like you're less than human. You don't deserve that. _No one_ ever deserves that. But you know what I'll never be sorry for?" She shifted her grip on James' shoulder and turned him so they were face-to-face. He barely glanced up at her through his scruffy hair. Solemnly, she leaned down to better meet his gaze. "I'll never be sorry I met you when I did, kid. I had nothing and no one when I met you, you know that?"

Disbelievingly, he finally lifted his head and met her gaze, mouth tight with some unnamable emotion.

"I've lost so many people, James. I'm so tired of losing people. Please don't push me away because you think you don't deserve me. Please." Her voice caught in her throat and the skin around her eyes tightened in grief.

In standard James form, he answered with action, rather than words.

Shepard nearly toppled over as James surged up to engulf her in a bone-crushing hug. Gingerly, she folded her hands over his back before returning the embrace just as desperately.

For the first time since she'd stepped off of the Normandy, Shepard felt like she was home.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Reminder that there is a drabble series continuation of this story. If you liked this, check out 'The New Houseguests.'


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